To be summoned from her sleep into such a presence—to see her house surrounded with soldiers—to be aware that some unknown crisis of the utmost gravity was at hand, might well have shaken the strongest nerves. But, in spite of the horror of this unknown mystery, the indomitable woman swept into the presence of the two statesmen with a demeanour not only undaunted, but conspicuously haughty. The soldier and the philosopher rose at her entrance, and the freedmen bowed low. The freedmen she did not deign to notice, but slightly inclined her head as she motioned the two ministers to be seated, and herself sat down on a stately chair covered with purple cushions.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘as this seems to be a solemn audience, I am informed that the Emperor has sent you two, and these other—persons’—glancing at the freedmen—‘to speak with me. What may be my son’s pleasure?’
‘Augusta,’ said Burrus in his sternest tones, ‘this is, as you have said, a serious occasion; you are accused of nothing short of high treason.’
The charge in days like those was awful enough to have forced back the blood into her heart, and for one instant she felt as if the solid earth were about to yawn beneath her feet. But in that instant she rallied all the forces of her nature. She looked, indeed, pale as a statue, but not the faintest tremor was perceptible in her accents as she exclaimed in a tone of the most freezing irony,—
‘Indeed? I am accused? and of high treason?’
‘You are accused,’ said Burrus, ‘of desiring to form a party among the legionaries to raise Rubellius Plautus to the throne and then to marry him.’
Agrippina’s only answer was a scornful laugh.
‘Poor Rubellius Plautus! the “golden sheep” of my brother Gaius!’
‘You will find it no matter for laughter. The Emperor is seriously alarmed,’ said Burrus.
‘I have no other answer to an accusation so ridiculous.’